Domestic violence In India: A Ticking Time Bomb
Used, abused and left alone, the tale of Indian women in domestic violence
Domestic violence/abuse is prominent in India
It shows Devi wearing a saree, a popular South Asian female garment, and her husband a kurta, a collarless long shirt. The flower garlands are festooned around their necks.
Softly, she runs her palm on the photograph, clearing years' old dust off it. And then suddenly tears flow from her eyes; a drop falls on the photograph, turning particles of dust into thin, little mud.
"I left him three years ago and have been living in this village with my sons," Devi says, sitting in a corner of the smoky kitchen at her rented two room house in Tigaon, a village in Faridabad district of northern Indian state of Haryana.
Originally a resident of Jhansi district in Uttar Pradesh, Devi came to Faridabad, with her two sons, after her husband, Param Anand, threw her out and brought home a new woman.
"He would always hurt me and call me 'badsoorat raand' (ugly whore)," she says, wiping tears with the hem of her saree.
"But for the sake of my kids I would tolerate him."
Keeping a pan on a mud hearth to boil vegetables, Devi narrates her grim tale.
"He would come home drunk, shout at me and beat me up over trivial things," she says.
"I do not remember a single day when I have gone to bed without crying."
Devi is a victim of domestic violence in India, a cruel, unchecked phenomenon that involves men and in-laws beating or torturing brides after marriage.
The house where domestic violence victim, Janki Devi, lives now.
Across India, 2,44,270 cases of crime against women were registered in 2012, according to a report by National Crime Records Bureau or NCRB, a government agency responsible for collecting and analyzing crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code or IPC.
In 2013, the report states, 3,09,546 cases were registered.
According to the report, the crimes against women have increased by 26.7 percent in 2013. The rate of domestic violence by husband or relatives stood up at 5.9 percent per 100,000, the report showed.
Incidents like homicide for dowry, rape, marital rape or forced abortion fall under the crime category of domestic violence.
Despite laws, there has been an increase in crimes like these in India.
Over the period of more than 18 years, Devi says, her husband inflicted grave wounds on her.
"I have scars all over my body," she says, showing few on her left arm.
"I would always apply 'Haldi' (turmeric powder) on the wounds to fight the pain."
Before Devi got married, she had wished, like every other girl, to get the best man in the world as her husband, she recalls.
But days after her marriage, she says, all her dreams shattered.
"I was forced to satisfy his lust every single night," she narrates.
"I still wonder whether that man ever loved me or just spent his nights considering me as a whore as he would call me."
This lasted for more than 18 years, Devi says.
And one fine day, her husband walked in with a new woman, she says.
"He threw me out of the room we had shared for 18 years along with my two kids."
Santosh Soni, a social worker from Haryana, says every fifth day he comes across a case of domestic violence.
"I have seen women getting ruthlessly beaten up by their husbands," she says.
Putting an end to domestic violence in India is difficult, Soni says.
"No government is able to educate the poor of this country as schemes are not implemented at grassroots level," she says.
Domestic violence will always remain an issue in villages unless people are educated, Soni opines.
Cases of domestic violence mostly get unreported, according to Indian police.
"Because of hesitation, many victims do not get their cases registered," says Inspector Rajdeep Mor of Tigaon police station in Faridabad.
Domestic violence was recognized as a specific criminal offence in India in 1983; section 498-A of Indian Penal Code deals with cruelty by a husband or his family towards a married woman.
The Domestic Violence Act of 2005 was introduced to prosecute perpetrators of crime in domestic violence cases.
A decade ago, Devi didn't know how to file a case of domestic violence. Even now, she has no idea about it.
"What can be done about it as it has happened," Devi says.
"I do not feel the pain anymore."
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